Rest Day

Saturday, our rest day. We all assembled at Jill's house at 12pm and another family called the Mays also joined us to go to the Ob Kan National Park  for a swim in the river and a barbeque. Some of us (not me!),  were quite adventurous and jumped off rocks into the water in lieu of a diving board. Don't worry they all survived! Then we all tucked into Jill's homemade burgers, they were delicious! We left the National Park and all came back to the house to shower and get ready to go the night bazaar. The night bazaar was amazing, its streets full of stalls of clothing, food, jewellry. We had two hours to explore and shop around. After all the shopping and eating we were shattered and proceeded to go to home and sleep as the next day would be a trip to the mountain villages and a wake up call at around 6.

Amanda

The List.

So I’ve got this headache bouncing around behind my eyes, singing horrendous, repetitive pop songs and seeing how hard it has to push before my brain dribbles out my ears. It’s slightly distracting, and the normal stream-of-consciousness-onto-paper dance that words do for me isn’t really happening today. So. Nothing too complicated. You’re getting a to-do list. That’s right, I’m sharing this little in-my-head checklist of things I need to do before next Friday finishes its hundred metre dash and smacks into me so you can all look at it and despair in the likelihood of me ever getting it done. Pain shared is pain halved, right?

I should add ‘Stop abusing metaphors’ onto my list.

1.      Tidy. Everything.

As in tidy away. In boxes, in the loft, to Oxfam. Chris is getting my room in a weird going away present; though I’m sure it’s meant to be the other way around. Still, while getting the room itself is fine he doesn’t want all the assorted junk of mine currently in it. Like the books (Not that books are junk, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise), of which I had enough to seriously consider starting my own small personal library. Even in getting rid of half of them I’ve can still fill two boxes; one turkey sized (Size reference not a coincidence. It actually held a roast turkey once. It’s got a sticker on it to prove it) and one big enough to fit in a 5 year old child with wriggle room (This box, unfortunately, did not at any point contain a small child. I know you’re all severely disappointed). You’ve got to go up a pretty steep ladder to get into our loft, so I employed those manipulative skills all women are born with to get my brother to hulk up the larger box; the tried and true method of ‘I am puny, you are not, do this heavy lifting to show how not puny you are.’ I sometimes wonder if you indulge us with this. You know, a subtle ‘I’m going to let you think you are cleverer than me by pretending I am manipulated into showing off my non-puny status.’ Or something.

I don’t suppose it matters. It’s kind of a win-win really.

2.      Get visa sorted.

Hah hah! I can tick this off the list! And perhaps put a big smiley sticker next to it. Because it’s done. My passport came back in the post today, now with a big red stamp in it looking all complicated and official. So you don’t have to totally despair. I’ve done something. Hah.

3.      Collaborate with Jane to organise the BBQ in a non-chaotic fashion.

I’m looking forward to this actually. I’m planning to make as much potato salad as humanly possible without collapsing into a puddle on the kitchen floor. While considering fridge space, of course. Can you store potato salad in a garage? I’ll find out. But that will be before I meet up with Jane. With Jane there will be cups of tea, and perhaps biscuits, and the sharing of miniature panic attacks resulting from trying to organise a reasonably large and complicated event in an unfortunately decreasing space of time. As well as the hiding of breakables. Just in case.

Before you say anything, yes, trying to do a BBQ for more than 10 people is kind of complicated. You have to prepare food, cook food, decide what to do with the mountains of leftovers (‘Who brought so much hummus?’) and with the BBQ itself maintain that fine line between food poisoning and catastrophically ashen. Of course, it will be a collection of men manning the BBQ. I think outdoor cooking just brings out the barbarian in them all or something.

And everyone better be praying it doesn’t rain. You can’t have a BBQ indoors.

4.      Stop abusing metaphors.

I’ll try.

Emma.